Return Of The Rising Sun
by JJ Rust
Summary: String and Dom investigate what they believe is an EMP attack. What they find instead is a warship from another time, and an imminent threat to the United States.
1. Chapter 1

Dozens of columns of thick, black smoke stretched from the ground and into the sky above Los Angeles. Whole sections of the city were blotted out by the ugly black clouds. Other sections glowed orange as flames swept through one block after another.

Stringfellow Hawke clenched his jaw as he flew _Airwolf_ over the burning city. His narrow eyes glared through the visor of his dark, motorcycle-like helmet. He turned his head to the south. More smoky clouds stained the horizon, smoke from San Diego and Tijuana. A chill went up his spine. He wondered if the West Coast could ever recover from this.

His anger boiled as he flew past Los Angeles. Guilt slithered through him as he glanced at the fire-ravaged city. He wanted to land, to help the people suffering down there.

But how much good could he and Dom do? Sure, they might be able to save a few people. In the meantime, hundreds, possibly thousands of others would die.

_You can't save everyone. _He thought after all the missions he'd been on, he would have realized it long before now. Actually, he did realize it. He just didn't like admitting it.

Face twisting in fury, he said a silent prayer to the people of Los Angeles, and all the other cities along the Southern California coast. He tried to concentrate on the mission. If they could find out what caused this catastrophe, they might be able to help those millions below them.

He glanced over his shoulder. The stocky man sitting behind him just stared out the cockpit window, visor up, eyes unblinking.

"You okay there, Dom?"

Dominic Santini didn't turn to face him. He just kept staring at the hellish scene below them. Finally, Santini shook his head. "I can't get over this, String. It looks like a war down there."

Hawke grunted. "We might be at war, Dom."

Santini finally looked at him. Hawke sensed his friend frowning under his helmet. With a sigh, Hawke turned back around.

Minutes later, _Airwolf _was over the water. Hawke pointed the sleek, hi-tech helicopter's nose to the southwest.

"Dom, can you raise Archangel and tell him we're feet wet?"

A few seconds of silence passed before Santini answered. "Ah, it's no good. All I'm gettin' on the radio is static. Even our radar's on the fritz. I don't get it. _Airwolf's_ supposed to be shielded against EMP."

"That's if this was an EMP attack."

"Well what else could be messing up most of the electronics in Southern California?"

Hawke worked his jaw back and forth. Electromagnetic Pulse was the theory Archangel, the FIRM's deputy director, put forth. If so, why did it affect _Airwolf's _systems? Like Santini said, the chopper was protected against that sort of attack. It couldn't be a solar flare. NASA reported no unusual activity coming from the sun. That meant, whatever this was, had to be man-made.

That begged the very important question. Who was responsible? Naturally the Russians had to be the prime suspects. Could this be the start of a pre-emptive strike on the US? Or could it be one of the USSR's "good buddies" like Cuba or North Korea or Libya? Or it could be China, or some terrorist group, or some criminal syndicate?

Hawke shook his head and groaned. He could play "Guess That Bad Guy" all day long and not get anywhere close to the truth. No, all he could do was head to the apparent epicenter of this attack some two hundred miles away. Maybe then they could get some answers.

He checked the compass on control panel, and scowled. The thing spun erratically.

_Doesn't anything work?_

He clenched the cyclic stick in a death grip. How the hell were they supposed to find anything in the middle of the ocean without radar or a compass or any other piece of necessary equipment? For a brief moment he understood the feelings of the people rioting from Tijuana to LA. No TVs, no radios, no phones, no way to get information. What could be more aggravating? Unfortunately, aggravation went hand-in-hand with fear, and when those two emotions combined, you had the perfect ingredients for violence. Violence the police and National Guard would be hard-pressed to control without any way to effectively communicate with each other.

Rage burned deep in Hawke's gut. God help the SOBs who did this. If, no _when, _he found them, he would make them pay dearly.

_Airwolf _flew further out into the Pacific. Hawke scanned around him, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He saw a few ships here and there, fishing trawlers and cargo ships mainly. Or did they hide something more sinister? None of them did anything to raise Hawke's suspicions. Had communications not been so screwed up they could have monitored _Airwolf's_ electronic warfare suite for any transmissions the typical fishing trawler shouldn't be making.

As it was, all he and Santini could do was mark down the locations of each vessel and have the FIRM check them out later.

On and on he flew, desperately wanting to find something, frustrated that _Airwolf's_ vaunted hi-tech equipment had become useless.

That's when he noticed three dark specks on the horizon.

"Dom, we've got company."

"Agh! The radar's still on the fritz. I've got no idea what's coming at us."

Tension gripped Hawke's body. Because of the electrical interference, no aircraft were supposed to be flying in this area . . . officially.

_Could they have something to do with this EMP or whatever?_

Heart thumping, he told Santini to activate _Airwolf's _weapons systems. Thirty-millimeter chain guns popped out of the tips of the chopper's wing stubs. The tri-barrel missile launcher slid out from the aircraft's underbelly.

"We can forget about missiles, String," Santini told him. "I'm not getting a lock from anything. The Sidewinders won't even pick up a heat signature."

"Terrific," Hawke grumbled. At least they still had the chain guns. Those could be aimed optically, and bullets didn't need any electronics to blow apart a hostile.

Though using guided missiles made that task easier.

The specks grew larger with each passing second. Before long, Hawke could make out specific details. Rounded wings, a teardrop canopy, a blunt nose with a single propeller. He held his breath, his index finger caressing the trigger of the cyclic stick.

The three aircraft shot past _Airwolf_ in a blur. Even in that split second, he spotted a bright red circle on the wing of one plane.

"Holy Moley," Santini said in awe. "String, did you get a gander at those planes?"

"I did, Dom."

"Man oh man. Mitsubishi A6M Zeros. They look in mint condition, like they rolled right off the assembly line."

Hawke said nothing. Instead he twisted his head to and fro and checked his rearview mirrors, his mind still trying to process what he just saw. Some of the criminal syndicates he and Santini faced in the past had used World War II-era aircraft. Still the sight of Imperial Japan's most famous fighter plane flying over the Pacific astonished him.

"Hey!" Santini shouted. "One of them's coming around to port."

Hawke checked over his shoulder. One of the Zeros swung around and headed back toward him. Another check of his right rearview mirror showed the remaining two Zeros coming up on his starboard side.

"All right, Dom, get ready to . . ." He paused just before he was about to jink _Airwolf._ He furrowed his brow as he watched the Zero on his left.

The fighter was actually slowing down!

_What the hell?_ The creed of every fighter pilot was "Speed is life." So why slow down when going in for the kill?

Hawke noticed something else. The Zero's angle of attack was way off. In fact, it appeared as though the plane tried to parallel _Airwolf._

He checked on the Zeros to his right. They also came straight in, trying to parallel _Airwolf's _course.

"I don't think they're trying to attack us," he told Dom.

"Okay, so what are they trying to do?"

Hawke glanced at the Zero on his left. "I'm sure we'll find out soon."

Seconds later the Zero came right alongside _Airwolf._ Hawke studied the figure in the cockpit. The man wore a thick brown jacket with a furred collar, a leather helmet and goggles. Even with all that, he could tell the pilot was indeed Japanese.

_What in the hell is going on here?_

The Japanese pilot turned to him and made a series of sharp gestures with his hands. Hawke immediately understood, and threw the pilot a nod and a salute.

"They want us to follow them."

"And are you?" Dom asked.

"Might as well."

"You sure that's a good idea?"

Hawke shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. But World War Two Zeros flying around an area where we may have had an EMP attack, they have to be related."

"How?"

"Hopefully we'll find out soon."

"Yeah, or maybe we're just flying into a trap."

"I thought about that, too," Hawke replied. "But if that's the case, we'll just escape."

"Oh, like it'll be that easy."

"I didn't say it would be easy. But we'll do it. Don't we always?"

"Yeah, and what if this turns out to be the one time we don't do it?"

"Then you can kill me before these guys do if that'll make you happy." Hawke chuckled briefly.

Santini scoffed. "What'll make me happy is not getting killed." He sighed loudly. "Well, I guess nothing to do now but sit back and enjoy the ride . . . to wherever the hell they're taking us."

Hawke maintained formation with the Zeros. He took numerous glances at the fighters, marveling at their condition. His eyes also lingered on the weapons. A 20mm cannon in each wing and two 7.7mm machine guns mounted in the engine cowling. His stomach tightened. The machine guns didn't worry him too much. Those rounds would bounce of _Airwolf's_ armored hide like pebbles. The 20mm cannons, however, could do the chopper some serious damage.

_If these guys wanted to fight, they would have done it by now._

Or they wanted to capture the most advanced aircraft in the world, and here he was just handing it over to him.

He tried to dismiss that thought. In his gut, he knew the Zeros and the EMP or whatever had to be connected. And after seeing Los Angeles in flames, he had to take some risks to learn the truth.

The four aircraft continued flying over the Pacific. Hawke found himself glancing at his fuel gauge more and more. They had enough to go about four hundred more miles. Still he couldn't help but be nervous when he looked out the cockpit window and saw nothing but ocean. There were no islands within _Airwolf's _current flying range. If these planes came from a land base, then they should be flying east, back toward California or Mexico.

_So where the hell are they taking us?_

He tried to beat down the paranoia that created mental images of _Airwolf _going down, and he and Dom floating in the ocean hundreds of miles from anywhere.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Still no sign of any . . .

_Wait a minute._

Hawke leaned forward. A dark speck sat on the horizon. Then another. And another. In all he saw five shapes. They grew larger the closer he got. After a while four of them remained the same size. The fifth still grew . . . and grew . . . grew.

"Good God." Hawke gaped at the sight before him. He felt more than saw Santini looking over his shoulder.

"No way this can be real. No way."

Hawke wished he could agree with his friend. What he saw below him should not be real.

Four knife-shaped vessels with boxy gun mounts plowed through the waves. He recognized them instantly. Fletcher-class destroyers. Like the Zeros, also straight out of World War II, only they served with the US Navy instead of Japan's. But what awed Hawke the most, what he couldn't take his eyes off of, was the ship in the center of the little destroyer screen.

It was an aircraft carrier. A gigantic one. He estimated it had to be around the size of a Nimitz-class carrier, maybe even bigger. As they got closer, they noticed the carrier bristled with guns of all shapes and sizes. Just guns. He couldn't find a missile launcher anywhere. That made him scrunch his face in puzzlement. What modern navy would send a ship like this to sea without any surface-to-air missiles?

He then noticed dozens of planes sitting on the carrier's massive deck. Several Zeros, just like the ones escorting him. He also spotted other planes straight out of a history book. Aichi D3A Val dive bombers and Nakajima B5N torpedo planes.

Hawke shook his head, trying to make sense of this. Who would build such a massive ship and arm it with planes and guns forty-some years old?

"String. Check out the flag on the carrier's mast." Santini pointed.

He screwed up his face and tilted his head.

A white flag snapped in the wind, a white flag with a red circle in the center and several lines stretching out from it. A flag that hadn't flown since 1945.

The Rising Sun flag of Imperial Japan.

"I'm almost afraid to ask if this can get any weirder," Santini commented.

"I have a bad feeling it will."

Hawke noticed movement out the corner of his eyes. He turned and saw the Zero on his left waggle its wings, trying to get his attention. Again the pilot gestured with his hands, indicating he should land on the carrier. Hawke gave him another nod. Inwardly, frustration built up. If only their damn radio worked. They could alert Archangel and The FIRM to this fleet of museum pieces. As it was, only he and Santini knew this carrier and its escorts sailed just a few hundred miles off the West Coast.

_If this is a trap, we better be able to escape._ Even with a bunch of World War II-era weapons, these guys could do some serious damage to the US if they wanted, especially with Southern California in total chaos.

Hawke piloted _Airwolf _toward the aft of the carrier and spotted the landing signal officer. Using his brightly colored paddles, the man guided _Airwolf _over the stern and to a spot on the port side of the flight deck. Hawke flared the engines, deployed the landing gear, and touched down. He and Santini shut down the helicopter's system just as one of the Zeros landed, bouncing as its tailhook snagged the arrestor wire. Several deckhands hustled over to the fighter and pushed it off to the side to make room for the next Zero.

"Ah, String." Santini tapped him on the shoulder.

"What is it?" He just completed the sentence when he saw a group of blue-clad, helmeted Japanese rushing toward them. All of them carried rifles. As with everything else here, they were straight out of World War II. Arisaka 6.5mm rifles, each one with a long, razor sharp bayonet protruding from under the barrel. A compact, bulldog-looking man emphatically waved for him and Santini to exit _Airwolf._

Sweat broke out all over Hawke's body. His eyes flickered over the rifles, the bayonets and the serious faces of the Japanese marines. He wondered if following those Zeros back to their carrier had been the best course of action.

_Nothing I can do about it now._

He stiffened his face so as not to betray any emotions, removed his helmet, and opened the cockpit door. The Japanese eyed him and Santini as they stepped out of _Airwolf_, rifles at the ready. A steady, salt-scented breeze whipped past him. The loud drone of a piston engine engulfed him as another Zero slammed onto the deck and jerked to a halt.

"Um . . . hi." Hawke held up his hand and gave the Japanese a half smile.

None of them smiled back.

"How's it goin'?" Santini beamed at them, though his smile was a bit forced. "Say, you guys know World War II ended over forty years ago."

Again, the guards didn't respond.

"No sense of humor," Santini whispered to Hawke. "That's not a good sign."

"Make way! Make way!" Someone barked in English, though with a Japanese accent.

The marines parted. Marching up to him and Santini was a muscular man in a flight suit. Hawke eyed him curiously. The man appeared in his late forties, perhaps, but those alert eyes displayed wisdom and experience well beyond that age.

"Yoshi-san! Yoshi-san, hold up."

Hawke's eyes widened. This new voice spoke without any foreign-accented English.

Then he saw the source of that voice. Try as he might, he couldn't keep his jaw from dropping.

The man was tall and broad shouldered with close-cropped blond hair and a square-jaw. He also wore a beige navy uniform . . . a United States Navy uniform.

Hawke blinked a couple times. What would a US Navy officer be doing on a Japanese carrier? What the hell were the Japanese doing with a carrier anyway? Their navy – hell, they didn't even call it a navy. They called it a maritime self-defense force, and they didn't have any carriers.

The American looked past Hawke and Santini and stared at _Airwolf _in disbelief. The man shook his head. "This can't be possible."

"It is possible, Brent-san," said the Japanese pilot, Yoshi. "We are staring at it, and it is real. How this can be real is another matter entirely."

The American, Brent, just nodded thoughtfully. His eyes then shifted to Hawke. "Quite a machine you have here."

"Yeah, it is."

"What kind of helicopter is this?"

Hawke hesitated. "We call it _Airwolf."_

"Uh-huh." Brent gave another thoughtful nod. "Sorry. I should introduce myself. I'm Lieutenant JG Brent Ross, US Navy. This is Commander Yoshi Matsuhara, our air group commander."

Matsuhara bowed to him and Santini.

Hawke turned to Santini and shrugged. He returned the bow, followed by Santini.

_What the hell? Might as well start off on the right foot._

"So what is this ship?" Hawke asked. "Why are you guys sailing around on a World War Two carrier?"

Ross and Matsuhara gave each other curious stares before turning back to him and Santini.

"All your questions shall be answered, I assure you," Ross said. "But right now, our admiral is very anxious to meet you. Come with us."

"Lieutenant." The bulldog marine blurted. "These two must not go through the ship without an armed escort."

Ross stared at Bulldog for a couple seconds. "Very well. Two seaman guards should suffice."

"_Hei!"_ Bulldog pointed to a pair of guards, who snapped to attention and took up position on either side of him and Santini. This didn't make Hawke overly nervous. Any military organization worth their salt would not allow strangers to walk around their base, or ship, without some kind of security. Even a military outfit using World War II ships.

Hawke and Santini followed Ross and Matsuhara into the island. They wound their way through corridors with pipes hanging over head and up narrow metal staircases. The party soon came to an oak paneled door guarded by a seaman who looked barely old enough to shave. The lad snapped to attention as Matsuhara knocked.

"Enter," someone said through the door.

Matsuhara opened the door and ushered in Ross, Hawke, Santini and the two guards. A polished conference table dominated the center of the room. Several figures sat around it. A tall, slender American with snow white hair and wearing a beige US Navy uniform, a balding mustached man in khaki fatigues and a puffy man in a plain white dress shirt.

Hawke's eyes widened when he came to the last two people. Both looked even older than Santini, who was just a few years away from collecting social security. One man was bald and slouched, and seemed seconds away from dropping dead. The other resembled a living mummy with his leathery skin and narrow eyes. A thin, white strand of a beard dangled from his chin.

_This guy should be in a nursing home, not on an aircraft carrier._

"Names!" the mummy demanded in a surprisingly strong voice.

"My name's Stringfellow Hawke, and this is Dominic Santini."

The mummy gave them both an appraising look. "Stringfellow. That is an unusual name."

"That's what everyone says. May I ask your name?"

"I am Admiral Hiroshi Fujita of his Imperial Majesty's ship _Yonaga."_

"_Yonaga! Banzai!"_ The other ancient Japanese man hollered, spittle flying from his lips. None of the others here seemed to pay him any mind.

Hawke nodded. "Well, Admiral, I must to say this is an interesting ship you have."

"Not as interesting as the aircraft which you have flown here. Perhaps you would care to tell me, Stringfellow Hawke, how it is you are able to fly a helicopter when no helicopter, no aircraft that possesses a jet engine, has flown anywhere in the world in over four years?"

_**TO BE CONTINUED**_


	2. Chapter 2

Hawke's face scrunched in puzzlement. He tilted his head, unblinking eyes fixed on the old admiral. "Are you joking?"

"The Admiral does not joke!" the other old man practically flew out of his seat, waving his arms. "Mind your insolent tongue, Yankee!"

Admiral Fujita held up a hand at the old man, who bowed and sat back down.

"Why do you ask if this is a joke?" Fujita asked. "This had been a fact for four years. The Chinese laser satellite prevents anything with a jet engine, or in the case of helicopters, a turboshaft, from flying. So how is it your aircraft can travel without inviting destruction from the heavens?"

Hawke's expression grew more confused. He turned to Santini, who just shrugged. "Don't look at me. I don't know what this guy's talkin' about."

"Guy!" The old man sprang out of his seat again, his writing pad almost flying out of his hands. "This is Admiral Fujita you are talking to! Show the proper respect, fat one!"

"All right, all right." Santini held up both hands in a calming gesture. "Sorry. Admiral Fujita, I mean." He leaned closer to Hawke and whispered, "Boy, these guys are touchy."

Hawke nodded, then bit his lip as he tried to formulate a response that lacked any sarcasm or insults.

"Admiral, I apologize, but I honestly do not know what you're talking about. There's nothing preventing any jet aircraft or helicopter from flying, and we certainly don't know about any laser satellite launched by the Chinese."

The others at the conference table turned to each other and muttered. Hawke picked up a few incredulous remarks.

"How can they not know this?" said the Japanese pilot Matsuhara.

"Have these two been living under a rock?" asked the older US Navy officer.

"But how can they be flying a helicopter?" The portly, puffy man shook his head.

"That is the most important question, Mister King," Admiral Fujita said to the portly man. "How can these two have flown a helicopter to _Yonaga? _And for what purpose?"

"We didn't intend to fly to your ship," Hawke said. "We're trying to determine the cause of the interference that's knocked out most of the electronics in Southern California."

"Well we know all about that," said the older Navy officer. "We've been having trouble with our radar and our communications."

"This is true." Fujita nodded. "It has been this way since _Yonaga _and her escorts passed through that strange tunnel of light."

Hawke's brow furrowed. "Tunnel of light?"

"That's the best description any of us has for, well, whatever it was." Mr. King leaned forward in his chair. "It was like some kind of storm, like heat lightning that wouldn't go away. Then a few minutes later, it cleared up and we were sailing in calm seas and under blue skies. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to contact anyone to tell them about it."

Hawke contemplated King's words. Could they have witnessed the detonation of the EMP device? But something niggled the back of his mind, as it had since Archangel assigned them this mission. An EMP would have knocked out all unshielded electronics. Yet only certain electronic devices across the Pacific and California had been affected. And had this been a true EMP attack, and _Yonaga _and the rest of the museum piece fleet were at ground zero, they would be floating adrift right now.

"So where exactly is this tunnel of light?" he asked.

"We estimate it's a hundred-fifty miles southwest of us," Ross answered.

"But whatever this was appears to have vanished." Matsuhara's lips twisted as he continued. "We dispatched patrol planes over the area, but none of them reported any sign of the tunnel."

"That's gotta be what's screwing up all the electronic equipment," Santini noted. "I mean, what else can it be?"

Hawke nodded to his friend, then turned back to Admiral Fujita. "So where does your ship fit in? No one has ever heard of a carrier named _Yonaga_. How can you keep something like this a secret from the entire world?"

"Secret?" Matsuhara drew his head back in shock. "The _Yonaga _is known to everyone in the world."

A quizzical look spread over Hawke's face. None of this made any sense. "Look, I don't know what you people are playing at, but jet planes can fly, there is no Chinese laser satellite, and there should not be some Japanese carrier from World War Two sailing around the Pacific in the present day. Have all you people escaped from a loony bin?"

He noticed a sudden change in the demeanor of the people around the conference table, and regretted making that last comment. Ross and the older US Navy officer gave him and Dom suspicious looks. Anger lines marred Matsuhara's face. Admiral Fujita aimed a harsh gaze their way.

"How dare you!" The old Japanese screamed, raining spittle all over his pad. "How dare you question our sanity, our honor!"

The veins in Hawke's neck stuck out. He scanned the men at the table. Many had looks that seemed to question _his_ sanity. He then glanced at the two marines. Both tensed, as if wanting to set upon them and drag them off to the brig.

_Or skewer us up with those bayonets._

"If I could ask everyone to settle down for a minute," the man in khakis urged. "I think I may have an explanation for what's going on here. It may sound far-fetched, but given everything that's happened so far . . ." He didn't bother finishing the sentence.

Admiral Fujita switched his gaze from Hawke and Santini to the khaki-clad man. "Very well, Colonel Bernstein. Proceed."

Bernstein bowed slightly before speaking. "The fact of the matter is we have a helicopter sitting on _Yonaga's _deck when there should be no helicopter flying. We have two men here who claim to have no knowledge of _Yonaga_ or the Chinese satellite."

"Liars!" blurted the old Japanese.

"I don't think so, Commander Katsube. I've seen in countless interrogations how people behave when they lie. Their body language, their eye contact. They all show confidence, not the look of people trying to lie. And the helicopter they flew here, well, that's a big reason why I think my theory has validity."

"And what theory is that?"

Bernstein turned to the older US Navy officer. "It's a theory that actually has a lot to do with your navy, Admiral Allen. You have, I'm sure, heard of The Philadelphia Experiment."

Admiral Allen grunted. "Yeah, I've heard of it. Making ships disappear, having them magically transported to Norfolk like something out of _Star Trek._ It's a bunch of crap."

"What if I were to tell you, Admiral, that it's not, as you say, a bunch of crap."

Allen gave Bernstein a skeptical look, as did Ross and Matsuhara. Hawke glanced at Admiral Fujita. The mummy-like flag officer stared at Bernstein, but kept his true feelings hidden behind that wrinkled mask.

Bernstein, whom Hawke pegged as an Israeli from his accent, continued. "In 1943, the United States Navy conducted an experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Yard to see if they could make their ships invisible to enemy radar. The system was set up on a destroyer called the _Eldridge. _The ship actually did disappear, but not the way the Navy intended. It was transported off the coast of Virginia for a short time, before it reappeared in Philadelphia."

"Fantasy." Katsube spat.

"On that we agree, Commander," said Admiral Allen. "All records show that the _Eldridge _was actually on a shakedown cruise in the Bahamas during the time this so-called experiment took place."

"You know as well as I do that records can be doctored. Anyway, the popular belief is that the project was cancelled. Not true. The Navy simply took it in a different direction. They wanted to find a way to instantly transport their ships across the world, envisioning whole fleets appearing out of the blue, say, in the Baltic Sea or Tokyo Bay."

Both Matsuhara and Katsube scowled at that last thought.

"So what happened then?" asked Hawke. He wasn't sure he one hundred percent believed Bernstein's tale. Then again, he had a hard time believing he and Santini were actually on a Japanese aircraft carrier forty-some years after World War Two.

Bernstein continued. "The US Navy converted an old Wickes-class destroyer, the _Tasby, _into a test bed. It was stationed off the coast of Florida in 1944, and was supposed to transport itself to the Pacific, off the coast of Mexico. And that's exactly what happened."

Hawke's jaw stiffed. He sensed a "but" coming from Bernstein.

"But something happened."

"What kind of something?" asked Allen.

"The crew reported seeing a large wooden sailing ship nearby. Straight out of a Horatio Hornblower adventure. Then apparently the _Tasby_ vanished, reappeared, and for some unknown reason, exploded."

"Wait a minute." Santini screwed up his face. "If the ship blew up, how would you know this?"

"There were survivors. Six of them, picked up a couple days after the accident by a Catalina flying boat. Their report went directly to Albert Einstein himself, who surmised that the _Tasby_ actually traveled to a parallel Earth."

"This is just unbelievable." Admiral Allen shook his head.

"It's all there in the CIA files."

"What!" King swung his head toward Bernstein. "How the hell did you people at Mossad get your hands on something like that?"

Hawke raised an eyebrow. He had a feeling Bernstein belonged to Israeli Intelligence. And King, no doubt, was CIA.

_CIA, US Navy and Mossad all with a bunch of Japanese on a World War II carrier._ If James Bond himself walked through the door right now, it wouldn't shock him.

"Mossad likes to know about things that are, er, out of the ordinary The day may come when something like that is needed to protect the Jewish State . . . or we must be prepared to defend against it if the Arabs decide to use it."

King scowled at the Israeli. Even Hawke found it disconcerting that Mossad could get CIA files on something that had to be classified Above Top Secret. Then again, Mossad spied on the US almost as much as the KGB.

"You seriously believe _Yonaga _has journeyed to some parallel Earth?" asked Admiral Fujita.

Bernstein nodded. "It looks to be the only explanation, as insane as it sounds."

"If that's true, how do we get back?" Ross asked.

The Israeli sighed and lowered his gaze to the table. "I wish I knew, Lieutenant."

Silence hung over the table. Hawke noticed many faces tightening, lost in their own thoughts. Katsube, however, looked like he was about to fall asleep, or maybe keel over dead. Admiral Fujita maintained his stoic visage.

Santini finally broke the heavy silence. "This is just . . . just . . . Holy Moley, String. I feel like we just landed in _The Twilight Zone."_

Hawke still had trouble wrapping his head around Bernstein's tale. For a moment, he thought this might be some elaborate set-up to seize _Airwolf._ He quickly dismissed that. _Airwolf _was parked on the carrier's deck, and there had to be several thousand sailors on this ship, including probably a couple hundred marines. If these people wanted his helicopter, they wouldn't have to come up with some crazy science fiction story to get it.

"So what about your ship?" Hawke asked. "What's going on on your Earth where Americans, Israelis and Japanese are on a World War Two carrier?"

Matsuhara answered him. _"Yonaga _was to be part of the strike force on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Because of her massive size, she could not stage out of Hitokappu Bay with the other six carriers. Instead, she was moved in secret to a cove called Sano-wan in Siberia's Chukchi Peninsula. Unfortunately, three months before the attack, an earthquake hit and dropped a glacier in front of the entrance. There we were trapped for forty-two years."

"Forty-two years!" Santini's eyes bulged. "How the heck did you guys survive for all those years?"

"We managed to dig a pair of tunnels large enough to send out fishing parties into the Bearing Sea. We also cultivated seaweed in the cove, and exercised daily and rigorously to maintain peak health. Then in 1983, the glacier melted enough for _Yonaga _to break free."

"So that was four years ago," Hawke said. "Why are you still on this ship? Why do you have Americans and Israelis as part of your crew?"

"As I mentioned before," Fujita picked up the story. "The Chinese satellite made it impossible for any jet engine to work . . . on our Earth." The old admiral winced after saying that. "As a result, the two superpowers, America and Russia, could not use their warplanes or missiles without them being targeted by the laser and destroyed. They became impotent. Now the madman in Tripoli seeks to dominate the world through his jihad."

Hawke cranked an eyebrow. "You mean Colonel Kadafi?"

"Ah, yes. So he is a threat on your world, too?"

"Not so much these days," Santini said. "After we sent some bombers over Tripoli last year, he's barely said a peep."

"Well he's much more of a threat on our world," Admiral Allen informed him. "Kadafi's gathered millions of fanatics and built up a huge navy and air force made up primarily of World War Two-era ships and planes. We've been fighting him for over three years."

"And we are about to fight him again," Matsuhara stated. "Before we went through that tunnel of light, we were in pursuit of an Arab carrier battle group sailing toward the Western United States."

Hawke slowly worked his jaw back and forth. "Is it possible that fleet could have gone through the same, um, tunnel of light you did?"

"We were following their exact course as determined by our scout planes," Fujita answered. "We must assume that the Arab fleet is now on your world as well."

A quiver went through Hawke's stomach. He didn't like the idea of a battle fleet of Colonel Kadafi lovers heading toward the US, no matter if they came from this Earth or _Yonaga's_. "How big a fleet are we talking about?"

"At least six ships." It was Brent Ross who answered. "The bulk of it is made up of ships Kadafi bought from the Soviet Union. Old ships from the fifties and sixties. A Kanin-class destroyer, a Skory-class destroyer, and a Sverdlov-class cruiser. Their main armament is guns, very few missiles, so the Arabs didn't have to modify them too much. They also have a pair of Gearing-class destroyers. The centerpiece of their fleet is the carrier _Al Bayda_, which is actually the Soviet carrier _Kiev."_

"_Kiev?"_ Hawke tilted his head. "But that carrier can only handle jump jets and helicopters. Why would your world's Kadafi want it?"

"_Kiev_ underwent major renovations in Tripoli over the past year-and-a-half," Allen pointed out. "They lengthened and widened the deck, removed all the missile launchers and anti-sub mortars, and added a ton of anti-aircraft guns. We estimate _Kiev_, or _Al Bayda, _can carry between eighty to eighty-five aircraft."

"What kind of aircraft?" Hawke asked.

"The usual air wing for an Arab carrier," said Matsuhara. "Me-109 fighters, Stuka dive bombers, and AT-6 Texans converted to torpedo planes."

"We also heard that they might have a couple old Gato-class submarines tagging along," Allen added. "Though that hasn't been confirmed."

Santini grimaced. "That's a lot of firepower headed our way. Any idea what their target is?"

Fujita nodded. "The Arabs plan to attack the Port of Los Angeles."

Hawke shuddered. The Port of Los Angeles was one of the busiest ports in the world. Given the capabilities of the Arab fleet, they could do some serious damage. Hell, a few sunken ships could block the harbor for months. The economic impact would be enormous, not to mention the loss of life.

"Most of the goods and supplies Japan imports from the US comes from the Port of Los Angeles," Ross said. "If the Arabs take it out, the economic consequences for Japan could be devastating."

"We flew over LA on our way here," Hawke told them. "The whole city is in chaos because of the electronic interference. With no radios or radar or missiles, the armed forces have no way of mounting an effective defense against thatbattle group."

"But would they still go through with the attack?" Santini wondered aloud. "I mean, this isn't their Earth."

"The Arabs may not realize that," Matsuhara stated. "Even if they do know, they will likely carry out their orders and attack the port. That is how much Kadafi's fanatics delight in death and destruction."

"Regardless of whatever Earth we are on . . ." Determination radiated from Admiral Fujita's wrinkled face. "We will still hunt down these cowardly dogs who would attack a defenseless target, and we will not rest until we have slain every last one of them!"

"Banzai!" Katsube hollered and threw up his arms.

More "Banzais" echoed through the room, from the mouths of Matsuhara, the two marines, and to Hawke's surprise, Lieutenant Ross.

"Now that I have made my intentions clear on what we shall do about the Arab fleet, there is another matter I must resolve." Fujita aimed a penetrating gaze at Hawke and Santini. "What shall I do with you two?"

_**TO BE CONTINUED**_


	3. Chapter 3

Hawke's face stiffened in response to the question. There were many things the ancient admiral could do to them. Throw them in the brig. Throw them overboard. He glanced over at the marine guards, focusing on the sharp, glimmering bayonets on their Arisakas, and contemplated another unpleasant fate.

_Or . . ._

"If our country is being threatened by Colonel Kadafi, then Dom and I want to team up with you and stop him."

"You do." Admiral Fujita leaned back in his chair, studying Hawke with his intense dark eyes. "And why should I let you join us in the coming battle? You suddenly appear out of nowhere in a strange craft that should not be able to fly and land on my ship. What reason do I have to trust you?"

Santini visibly swallowed. Hawke drew a deep breath, matching hard stares with Fujita. "That's a fair question, Admiral. You don't have any reason to trust us. Then again, we have no reason to trust you."

"Insolent dog!" Katsube leapt from his seat, waving his skinny arms. "You dare impugn Admiral Fujita's honor? Behead him! Behead him!"

Fujita raised a hand at Katsube. The old man immediately became silent, sat back down, and resumed keeping the minutes of the briefing.

"You, also, make a fair point, Stringfellow Hawke. I also commend your dedication to defending your country against these cowardly animals. So what can your _Airwolf_ offer us in battle? What weapons does it carry?"

The corners of Hawke's mouth twitched. He didn't feel comfortable telling a bunch of people he just met, people he still debated whether or not to trust, about his helicopter's capabilities.

But given the situation . . .

"_Airwolf _has a triple-barrel launcher capable of firing various ordnance, including Sidewinder air-to-air missiles."

"Can your missiles work on this Earth?" Fujita asked.

"I don't think so. Whatever is affecting electronic systems in Southern California is also affecting our the guidance systems of our missiles."

"Then your aircraft is useless!"

Nervous ripples went through Hawke's stomach. He drew a breath and continued. "We also carry two thirty-millimeter chain guns. They don't require any sort of electronic guidance. Just point and shoot, the old fashion way. And those guns are more powerful than anything your planes carry."

He noticed Matsuhara scowl at him. Hawke wondered if he may have stepped over the line with that remark. But he needed to get into this fight, to protect his country. He had to convince Admiral Fujita _Airwolf _could be valuable against the Arab battle fleet. Otherwise, he and Santini could wind up in _Yonaga's _brig, or worse.

Fujita just stared at him in silence. Hawke counted the seconds. Five. Ten. Fifteen.

"We're also very maneuverable," he added. "Just as maneuverable as any jet fighter. And fast. We can exceed Mach One with our turbo jets."

"What!" King stammered in disbelief.

"Mach One for a helicopter?" Bernstein's face scrunched in a skeptical expression. "That can't be possible."

"Is it any more impossible than a World War Two destroyer traveling to a parallel Earth?" Hawke shot back.

Bernstein grunted. "_Touché_, Mister Hawke."

Hawke nodded and turned back to Fujita. "There you have it, Admiral. We will be valuable to you in a fight. Besides, it's our country. You can't expect us to just sit here and do nothing while some lunatics are attacking it."

Fujita's wrinkled face lit up. "Spoken like a true samurai."

Shouts of _"Banzai!" _reverberated through the room.

"Very well." Fujita nodded slightly. "You shall fight beside us."

"Thank you, Admiral." Hawke added a slight bow.

"Yeah, thanks," said Santini, who slouched in visible relief.

"But . . ."

Hawke tensed when the Admiral's finger came up. _Naturally, there has to be a but._

"While I will allow you to fight alongside the _Yonaga's_ crew, you still have done nothing to fully earn my trust. I cannot, will not, jeopardize this ship or its mission simply on your word. Whenever you move about _Yonaga, _you two will be escorted by armed seamen guards."

Hawke said nothing. What could he say? _Yonaga _was Admiral Fujita's ship. He also wasn't offended. Any halfway competent commander wouldn't let two strangers have free reign of their ship.

"And when you fly into battle, you shall do so with an escort. Lieutenant Ross."

Both he and Santini turned to the young American naval officer. Ross sat with a stoic look on his face, nodding to Fujita.

"Lieutenant," the Admiral continued. "You shall observe these two at all times in their helicopter. If you see them do anything to betray _Yonaga, _kill them."

"What?" Santini blurted.

"Yes, Admiral." Ross nodded.

Hawke turned to him. "Do you know how to fly a helicopter, Lieutenant?"

"No I do not."

"Then that's going to be a problem, because if you shoot me and Dom while we're up there, you're going to crash into the sea and die."

"Lieutenant Ross is prepared to meet his end like a true samurai if need be," Fujita stated.

"_Banzai!"_ Ross yelled.

Hawke raised an eyebrow. He looked at Ross' eyes and noted the resolve. There was no question if Brent Ross had to die to carry out his orders, he would do it without hesitation.

_I think that guy's been on this ship way too long._

"So we're supposed to go up there and fight with you guys with a gun to our heads?" Santini snorted and slapped his sides. "Boy, some allies you are."

"Take it easy, Dom." Hawke slapped his shoulder. He'd willingly pay this price to get into the fight.

Turning to Fujita, he said, "So long as we're both on the same page when it comes to stopping that Arab fleet, you can count on us, Admiral."

"Let us hope so." Fujita slid closer to the table. "Now, it is time you learn our strategy when it comes to the _Al Bayda _battle group. Commander Matsuhara."

The air group commander sprang to his feet, bowed to the Admiral and stepped toward a wall-mounted map of the Pacific Ocean. Hawke and Santini moved closer as the pilot spoke.

"From the Arab fleet's last known position, course and speed, we estimate that right now they are some two hundred fifty miles to the southwest of Los Angeles, and about one hundred eighty miles northwest of the island of Guadalupe. Given the limited range of their Me-109s, I believe the _Al Bayda _will wait until it is less than two hundred miles from Los Angeles before launching their planes. That gives us between two to three hours to either find the Arab carrier and her escorts and sink them, or have our air group beat them to Los Angeles and establish a Combat Air Patrol over the port."

"Would the Arabs even care about fighter cover?" asked Admiral Allen. "Let's face it, this is a one-way mission for _Al Bayda. _Kadafi had to know that when he approved this mission. The Arabs might just launch from their airplanes' extreme range and not worry about them coming back, which means they could be in the air as we speak."

"I do not believe Kadafi intended to sacrifice this entire fleet to destroy the Port of Los Angeles," Matsuhara responded. "Aircraft carriers are too valuable for him. It is a mission full of risk, no doubt, but so was our original mission to attack Pearl Harbor."

"_Banzai!"_ Katsube shouted.

A sneer briefly crossed Admiral Allen's face.

Matsuhara cleared his throat and continued. "What we must now consider is how to divide our forces. Our priority must be the Port of Los Angeles. I recommend sending half our Zero-sens there to intercept the Arab attackers. Then we must locate the _Al Bayda_ and destroy it. Our remaining fighters can be divided between protecting our Vals and Kates, and providing a CAP for _Yonaga."_

"No!" Fujita declared forcefully. "As you said, Commander, our priority is defending the Port of Los Angeles. Therefore, we shall send three-quarters of our Zero-sens, led by you personally, to the port. As for the remaining Zero-sens, all but six shall accompany our dive bombers and torpedo planes as they search for _Al Bayda _and send her to the bottom of the ocean with her crew of cowards."

"A six-plane CAP?" Allen's mouth hung open in disbelief. "Admiral, with all due respect, we have to assume the Arabs are looking for us. How can six planes stop any aerial attack on _Yonaga?"_

"That is what we have Captain Fite's destroyers for, to shoot down enemy planes. And _Yonaga _has more than enough guns to defend itself from any air attack. But the Port of Los Angeles must be protected at all costs, and that is where we shall send the bulk of our fighters. Is that understand, Admiral Allen? Commander Matsuhara?"

"_Hei!"_ Matsuhara snapped to attention and bowed.

"Yes, Admiral." Allen begrudgingly agreed with Fujita.

"There is one thing we must take into consideration," Matsuhara said. "Since we do not know when the Arab squadrons will arrive at the Port of Los Angeles, our planes risk running out of fuel loitering over the target area."

"Surely there are airfields nearby your pilots can use," Fujita pointed out. "Land at one of them. Confiscate what fuel you need if you have to."

"There is another option."

All eyes turned to Hawke. He walked over to the map. After a moment's hesitation, Matsuhara stepped aside.

"Right here." Hawke tapped the map with his index finger. "The FIRM has a secret airstrip at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, less than sixty miles from LA."

"What the heck is the FIRM?" asked Admiral Allen.

"The agency we work for. Anyway, that airstrip has plenty of fuel for _Yonaga's _planes. It's also isolated, so we won't have to worry creating a stir by having a bunch of Zeros suddenly show up at LAX or John Wayne Airport."

"There is another problem," Matsuhara said. "If we have all our Zero-sens up at the same time over the Port of Los Angeles, again we risk running out of fuel when the Arabs arrive. I recommend keeping half our fighters over the port, and the other half at the secret airstrip Mister Hawke mentioned. We can rotate squadrons every hour."

"And what happens when the Arabs show up?" Hawke folded his arms across his chest. "We can't have half our planes sitting on the ground, especially since we have no way to radio them when the attack begins."

Lines etched into Matsuhara's usually smooth features. Hawke had difficulty telling if the pilot was angry or just thinking.

"Then we shall use messengers," Matsuhara stated. "I shall assign one pilot in each squadron to this task. The moment the Arab squadron is spotted, he shall fly to this FIRM airstrip and alert our pilots there."

"That'll take too long. In the time it takes for your man to reach the airstrip and get your other planes scrambled and to the port, the attack could be over, and over in a bad way for us. Plus without radar we won't be able to pick up the Arab squadron until they're in visual range."

"It is the best we can do given the circumstances." Matsuhara didn't sound apologetic, or concerned. He merely stated it as a fact.

Hawke grunted and rolled his eyes. "So we're supposed to defend the Port of Los Angeles from a major air strike _and_ locate an enemy carrier battle group without any way to communicate, without any radar?"

"The Arabs will no doubt have the same problems with their electronic machines," Fujita noted. "This will put us on even footing."

"I don't think so." Hawke shook his head. "When the Arabs come, they'll come with the bulk of their air wing. We're likely to find ourselves outnumbered, and it might take a half-hour to an hour before we see any reinforcements."

"Then you will fight." Fujita spoke in a forceful tone. "You will fight until you have killed all of Kadafi's savages, or they have killed you."

Hawke's fists clenched, his anger boiling. "There's a good chance we all might die, because we won't have enough planes, and because we have no way to even talk to one another in the air!"

Admiral Fujita's hand slammed down on the oak table with surprising force. "Bah! You are like many of the so-called warriors on our Earth. You have become too enamored, too reliant, on your fancy machines. Without your radars and radios and computers, you are lost. Impotent! I served on the battleship _Mikasa_ during the Battle of Tsushima. We had none of the electronic junk your kind worship as though it were some deity. We only had our eyes to see the enemy, we only had our brains to calculate the distance to our targets, and we had _Yamato damashii, _the Japanese spirit, to guide us through the battle. And that is what led us to victory over the Russian fleet! Will you let Kadafi's barbaric followers attack your country because you do not have your fancy toys?"

"No, of course not," Hawke snapped.

Fujita gazed hard at him. "You say the words, but do you truly believe them? Do you believe it is your missiles and guns and electronic gadgets that make you a warrior, or do you believe what is written in the _Hagakure_, the Book of the Samurai, that the spirit is more important than the weapon? I can tell you this of _Yonaga's _crew, Mister Hawke, no matter if all our guns are empty, we will keep fighting. We will do whatever it takes to defeat our enemies, no matter how desperate it may seem. We will ram their planes, ram their ships if we must. We will stab them with knives and bayonets, we will club them with rifle butts, or with our bare fists. We will rip out their throats with our teeth if we have to. As long as one of us draws breath, we will fight!"

"_Banzai!" _hollered Matsuhara, Katsube, Ross and the seaman guards.

Fujita's dark eyes bore in on Hawke. "Can I expect that sort of commitment from you, Mister Hawke?"

Hawke glared at the withered, mummy-like admiral. Fury boiled inside him. Who the hell was this walking artifact to question his courage? He fought in Vietnam. He'd been through dozens of missions and battles with _Airwolf._ He'd faced death more times than he could count. He'd extricated himself from situations that would leave most other men dead.

Fujita could doubt him all he wanted. When the time came, he and Santini would fight. Even without _Airwolf's_ hi-tech equipment, they would fight.

But Hawke was also a realist. He knew that all of Fujita's samurai bluster and all the shouts of _"Banzai,"_ couldn't change the fact that without radios and radar and all the other things necessary to wage modern war, their chances of success were very slim.

_**TO BE CONTINUED**_


	4. Chapter 4

An uncomfortable tingle crept up and down Hawke's neck. He'd had this feeling many times before, in the presence of dictators, drug lords, mercenaries, and any number of thugs who had wanted him dead.

He never thought he'd get that same feeling from an officer in the US Navy.

_Can I even call him that? _He took a sideways glance out _Airwolf's _cockpit, watching the blue waters of the Pacific pass under him. At the same time, he also glimpsed Brent Ross sitting in the helicopter's right jump seat. The young lieutenant's intense eyes shifted back and forth between him and Santini, watching for the slightest hint of betrayal. Hawke had no doubt if either of them did anything suspicious, Ross wouldn't hesitate to kill them, even at the cost of his own life.

He sighed to himself. He wondered if Ross would be more comfortable in those dark blue World War II-style uniforms worn by _Yonaga's _crew instead of his beige US Navy fatigues. The guy seemed to show more loyalty toward Admiral Fujita and the Japanese than his own nation's navy.

_Just how insane is that other Earth?_ The last two words made Hawke grimace under his helmet. He still found it hard to accept the fact there was more than one Earth.

The California coast soon appeared as a brown strip on the horizon. Black smudges stained the sky. Smoke from the fires in Los Angeles and San Diego. It wasn't long before _Airwolf_ went "feet dry" and turned north. Forests and dark, rigid mountains stretched before them.

Ten minutes Hawke spotted a long dirt strip in the middle of the forest. A few battered Quonset huts were scattered around it, along with a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter and four Land Rovers, all painted green to make it look like they belonged to the US Forest Service.

Hawke swung _Airwolf _around, lowered the landing gear and flared the engine. A banshee-like wail filled his ears as the helicopter hovered to a landing on Parcel No. 34-FS53-118-G23, the rather innocuous name for The FIRM's secret airfield in the San Gabriel Mountains. As the rotorblades slowed to a halt, Hawke noticed three men approaching _Airwolf. _Two were stout, wearing green overalls and carrying Uzi submachine guns. Between them walked a stocky man with a white beard and bulging stomach. Hawke smiled as he opened the door and hopped out.

"Oh my Lord, the famous Stringfellow Hawke." The older man beamed at him. "I'm overwhelmed you'd choose to set foot on my humble airfield."

"Save the BS for someone who'd actually buy it." Hawke grinned wide before shaking hands with Lonnie Noles, the man in charge of this airstrip. The two had known one another for nearly twenty years, going back to Vietnam, when Hawke flew Hueys and Noles served as a ground crewman for the CIA's Air America.

"Good to see you again, String."

"You too, Lonnie."

Noles looked over Hawke's shoulder as Santini and Ross approached. "Dom, how're ya doin? Who's the new guy?"

"Lieutenant Brent Ross, US Navy," Hawke answered. "Sort of."

Noles' face scrunched in a perplexed look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, we're involved in a rather . . . unique operation. But before I tell you about it, you better get ready to receive some more aircraft."

"How many more?"

"Oh, several . . . dozen."

Noles' eyes widened. "You kiddin' me? For cryin' out loud, this isn't LAX. We're set up to handle only a few planes at a time, not a whole damn air wing."

"C'mon, Lonnie. I know these FIRM airstrips keep a lot of fuel in underground tanks. And if you park these planes along the strip wingtip-to-wingtip, you should have just enough room."

"I don't have the ground crew for that many planes."

"The pilots will help you," Ross stated.

Noles looked at him, then back to Hawke, still apparently unsure about all this. "What kind of planes are we talking about?"

He paused. "Japanese A6M Zeros."

Noles tilted his head, shooting him a disbelieving look. "You're not serious, are you?"

Hawke exhaled slowly. "Well, Lonnie, if you think that's crazy, wait till you here where we've been the past few hours."

He gave him the short version of his and Santini's experience on the _Yonaga_, and the impending threat by the Arab fleet from the other Earth. Noles gaped at him most of the time. The two guards just stared at Hawke like he was insane.

After Hawke finished, Noles slowly shook his head. "String, if it wasn't for the fact I've known you for twenty years, I'd knock out your crazy ass, stuff you into one of our trucks and drive you to the nearest loony bin."

"Believe me, there've been times today I wanted to check myself in to a loony bin. But everything I said is true."

"And if you don't believe him, just look up there." Ross pointed toward the sky.

Several dark shapes appeared, all headed toward the airstrip.

"Well I'll be damned," Noles stammered. He shook his head, then started barking orders. Before long thirty men in green overalls hurried around the airfield. Two fuel trucks rolled out of one of the Quonset huts. Ground crewman got into position, ready to direct the Zeros to their parking areas.

Just as the first plane touched down on the dirt strip, Noles introduced the three to a lean, tan-skinned man with aviator shades.

"This is Rick Baldelli, my number two man here. I want you to tell him the same crazy-ass story you told me. We need to get this to Archangel."

"You mean you can radio him?" Surprise coated Santini's voice.

"No, we can't." Noles bobbed his head from side-to-side. "Well, that's not entirely true. We've been trying the radio regularly, and a few hours ago we did manage to contact FIRM HQ. Not that it amounted to much. We managed to exchange a handful of words before the static got too bad. The best we can do is give Rick here an R/T unit," he referred to a Radio/Telephone, "and have him drive about twenty miles east. That seems to be where this . . . electrical interference ends."

Hope shot through Hawke. He wondered, he prayed, that those few moments of radio contact meant the interference caused by the dimensional portal was abating.

More Zeros landed. As soon as the pilots got out of their planes, they were pressed into service as ground crewmen. Some complained, mainly the younger ones. Matsuhara put an end to that quickly. Hawke spoke no Japanese, but whatever _Yonaga's_ air group commander shouted to his griping subordinates proved effective. They hurried off to pump fuel, stuff chock blocks against wheels, direct planes to parking areas, whatever they needed to do. Hawke and Santini, meanwhile, helped one of Noles' men unload all of _Airwolf's _missiles. With the interference still screwing up their guidance systems, they were nothing but dead weight. Getting rid of the missiles would help improve _Airwolf's _already outstanding maneuverability. Hawke had been in enough air battles to know even the smallest advantage could mean the difference between life and death.

He frowned as he watched some of Noles' ground crew haul off the missiles on trolleys. He didn't like taking _Airwolf _into a major battle with its offensive capability cut in half. All he had to rely on was his 30mm chain guns. He also had the Sunbursts, but so what? They were just flares, used for countering heat-seeking missiles, meaning they'd be useless in the upcoming battle.

Even with _Yonaga's_ pilots helping, getting the Zeros fueled and moved into take-off position took too long for Hawke's liking. He found himself staring out beyond the forest, imagining Los Angeles many miles to the south, imagining the _Al Bayda's_ planes reigning bombs on the Port of Los Angeles.

He tensed as the feeling returned, the same one he had back on _Yonaga._ The feeling that their mission was doomed from the start.

**XXXXX**

Michael Coldsmith Briggs III, aka Archangel, stared in silent contemplation at the secure phone on his polished desk. Finger resting on his cheek, he swiveled slowly in his chair, replaying the report from Rick Baldelli. A World War II Japanese carrier from a parallel Earth trying to stop an Arab carrier battle group, also from a parallel Earth, from attacking the Port of Los Angeles. Any sane man would dismiss such a report, no matter if it came from the second-in-command of a FIRM secret airstrip, no matter if he used all the proper authentication codes.

But Archangel was a sane man, a sane man who had seen a lot in his life. Or if he hadn't seen it, he read about it, read about things that sounded like something out of the pulp magazines he read as a kid.

_Thank God Hawke and Dominic are involved in this_. Those two had been through more than their share of intense situations, and were probably more capable of dealing with something this extraordinary than most people associated with The FIRM.

_Well, they have their job to do, and I have mine._

Archangel stood, stretching his tall, lanky frame. He grabbed his cane and exited his office. He headed down the hall to the elevator and punched the button for Sub-Level Seven. After enduring over a minute of a soft piano version of The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," the elevator jerked to halt. When the door opened, Archangel found himself staring down a bland white corridor that ended in a thick steel door. He walked toward it and inserted his ID badge into a slot in the wall. The bulb just above it switched colors from red to green. He then leaned toward a small grill.

"Michael Coldsmith Briggs the Third, Deputy Director, Codename Archangel. Password, Snowbird Thirty-Three."

Seconds later a glass display above the grill lit up, revealing the words ACCESS GRANTED.

The steel door rose. Archangel entered the room and was greeted by the sight of rows and rows of filing cabinets. He headed for the third row to his left, past one cabinet, two, three, four . . .

He stopped at the fifth one. Bending down slightly, he pulled open the middle drawer and thumbed through the manila folders until he came to the one he wanted. He pulled it out and gazed at the cover.

**SP1943-591-FG**

**CODENAME: PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT**

**XXXXX**

Hawke's eyes flickered in all directions. He scanned the horizon for any sign of enemy planes. He scanned the Zeros around him. Most importantly, he scanned _Airwolf's _fuel gauge. Every time he did, he calculated how long it would be before he hit "Bingo Fuel" and would have to return to the FIRM airstrip. The nervous ripple in his gut intensified as he got closer to that time. Would _Al Bayda's_ planes show up just when they'd have to leave? Would the Zeros in the second air group all be on station before the first group had to depart?

_This would be so much easier with radar and radios. _Hawke had tried both a few times over the past half-hour. He did pick up a few, garbled words over the radio. The radar screen, however, showed nothing but a big blue electronic blob.

_Airwolf _and the Zeros continued flying a racetrack pattern twenty to twenty-five miles southwest of the Port of Los Angeles. Hawke glanced at the fuel gauge and grimaced. In about ten minutes he'd have to head back to the air strip to refuel. _Probably a good thing the Arabs haven't shown up yet. _Air Combat Maneuvers ate up a lot of fuel. He'd rather have the second group of Zeros get here, with fuller tanks, to engage the Arabs. He checked to the northeast for any sign of the relief squadron.

"Multiple bandits from the southwest!" Ross hollered.

Hawke's head snapped in that direction. His heart pumped furiously.

Dozens of dark shapes appeared on the horizon. _Al Bayda's_ air wing. It had to be.

Hawke steadied his breathing. "You ready for this, Dom?"

"Like I have a choice?" Santini scoffed.

"I'll take that as a yes." Hawke grinned beneath his helmet.

He scanned the approaching squadron again. They looked to be coming in at around 19,000 feet, roughly 2,000 feet lower than _Airwolf _and the Zeros.

Perfect.

Hawke's thumb hovered over the button for the turbojets. This would burn up a bunch of fuel, but Commander Matsuhara had been insistent on this before they left the FIRM airstrip.

"The sight of your helicopter using its jets, diving into their ranks, will surely surprise Kadafi's killers. Then my Zeros will pounce on them before they can recover."

He couldn't argue with Matsuhara's logic. They had to use any advantage they could against the larger Arab squadron. It meant being unable to return to the FIRM airstrip, but stopping the attack on the Port of Los Angeles took precedence.

"Dom, deploy the chain guns."

"Chain guns deployed."

"All right. Hold on."

Hawke smashed the turbojet button with his thumb.

A _whoosh _and a _screech_ filled _Airwolf's _cockpit. The helicopter shot forward. The Arab squadron grew larger by the second. Hawke dipped _Airwolf's _nose and went into a dive. He started making out details of the planes. The blunt shape of the Me-109 fighters. The distinct gull wings of the Stuka dive bombers. The rounded fuselage of the A-6 Texan torpedo planes.

Hawke aimed for a gap between a pair of Me-109 formations. He glimpsed a few pilots looking up at him, the shock evident in their body language.

He blew past the fighters, focusing on a formation of Stukas below.

_Short bursts. Short bursts._

The gun pipper settled over the lead plane. Hawke's finger tapped the trigger on his cyclic stick. A line of yellow tracers streaked through the sky. Flames burst from the Stuka's engine. The glass canopy shattered. The dive bomber lurched to the left and spun toward the ocean.

Several Arab planes banked away from _Airwolf._ Formations broke apart. Hawke targeted another Stuka. A burst of 30mm rounds blew off the dive bomber's tail. It twisted out of control and fell from the sky.

Hawke shoved the stick to the right. _Airwolf_ went into a tight turn back to the Arab squadron. He clenched his teeth and groaned as an invisible hand pressed down on him.

Me-109s, Stukas and Texans turned wildly, flying in all directions. Some planes attempted to get back in formation. Others plowed through the sky with no idea what to do. Still others held their course and continued toward the Port of Los Angeles.

Hawke dove on a pair of Texans. Something flashed from the rear of one plane's canopy. Seconds later tracers shot past _Airwolf._ He held his breath for a moment, but kept going. The Texan's 7.9mm rear machine gun didn't have much chance of penetrating the helicopter's armor.

Two more bursts from the Texan's rear gun also missed _Airwolf._ Hawke tapped the cyclic stick's trigger. Tracers ripped into the Texan's left wing, slicing it off. As it spun toward the Pacific, the other Texan banked right and tried to make a run for it.

The lumbering torpedo bomber didn't have a prayer against _Airwolf. _Hawke easily caught up to it and triggered another 30mm burst. An immense fireball consumed the Texan. Two pings echoed through the cockpit. Shrapnel.

_Musta hit the torpedo._

Silvery glints caught Hawke's attention. He looked up and spotted a Zero with a distinctive red cowling. Matsuhara's plane. Behind him flew several more Zeros. They shot past the Arab fighters, going for the slower bombers. Tracers tore through the sky. Three Stukas and two Texans tumbled toward the water in flames. The rear gunners from several Arab bombers fired back. None hit any Zeros that he could see.

More of _Yonaga's _fighters joined the furball. Dozens of planes twisted and turned and dove and burned in a chaotic and deadly ballet. A surge of elation went through Hawke. They'd knock down every single Arab plane before they got close to the Port of Los Angeles. He just knew it.

The adrenaline-induced joy quickly faded when he saw a Zero fall from the sky, trailing flames. Two Me-109s pounced on another Zero that was lining up a Stuka. The Japanese plane tried to bank away from the threat, but wound up peppered by 7.9mm slugs. Ugly black smoke poured from the Zero as it spiraled into the ocean.

Hawke spotted a formation of four Texans dropping toward the water, still on course for Los Angeles. He pointed _Airwolf's _nose at them and gave chase. It didn't take long to catch up to the slow-moving planes. Two of the rear gunners fired at him. Both sets of tracers went wide to the right. Hawke lined up the gun pipper on the trailing Texan and –

"Two fighters behind us!" Ross yelled.

Hawke immediately banked left. Yellow tracers shot past his peripheral vision. He swung _Airwolf_ back to the right and checked his rearview mirror.

Two Me-109s barreled toward him.

He banked again. Another line of tracers missed him. The 109s were a lot more dangerous than the Stukas or the Texans. While _Airwolf's _armor could easily withstand the Me-109's 7.9mm machine guns, they also packed 20mm cannons. A few hits from those could seriously ruin their day.

Hawke climbed, checking on the Me-109s. Both stuck with him, their fuselage-mounted guns winking. More pings sounded from _Airwolf's _rear as 7.9mm rounds found their mark.

G-forces pushed against his body. He tightened his stomach and grunted, climbing higher, higher. With a prolonged grunt he twisted _Airwolf _to the left, leveled out and sped toward the open ocean.

"MEs turning with us," Santini reported, his voice strained by the Gs.

Hawke grimaced. He didn't want to do this and burn up more fuel, but given the circumstances . . .

He fired the turbojets and circled around. When the Me-109s came into view he cut the jets. Both fighters maintained their turn. Hawke briefly wondered if the two pilots were stunned by how fast _Airwolf _could fly and turn.

The thought evaporated. Time to get down to business.

Hawke's first burst missed wide left. _Dammit!_ It was like he had unlimited ammo in the chain guns.

His next burst chopped off the lead Me-109's left wing. It nosedived toward the ocean. Hawke noticed a human figure fall from the plane and open a parachute just as he lined up on the second fighter. Tracers ripped into the fuselage just behind the canopy. The Me-109 went up in a cloud of orange and black as its fuel tank detonated. No one would be bailing out of that plane.

Hawke searched for more targets, specifically more bombers. They were the priority.

He spotted well over a dozen, a mixture of Stukas and Texans, growing smaller by the second, all headed toward the Port of Los Angeles.

All around him Zeros and Me-109s dueled. He saw a few Zeros try to break away and go after the bombers. Most were set upon by Arab fighters. Some Zeros turned to engage. Others fell into the ocean in flames.

Hawke's lips tightened. He didn't want to run out on the Japanese, yet he couldn't let those bombers reach the port.

_Matsuhara and the others can take care of themselves. The mission comes first._

He figured Matshuara, Fujita and the other Japanese would agree.

That's when he turned around to face Brent Ross.

The Navy officer, this "American Samurai," met his gaze with a penetrating one of his own. Hawke felt a slight chill, like the younger man could read his thoughts.

"Let's get 'em," Ross said coolly, nodding in the direction of the bombers.

Hawke nodded. He turned back around and gunned the engine. He held off using the turbos. One more burst and he doubted he'd have enough fuel to take out all the Arab bombers.

He coaxed every ounce of speed he could from _Airwolf's _engines_._ Still he never seemed to be able to catch up with the Stukas and Texans.

And the Port of Los Angeles stood out clearly several miles away.

_C'mon, girl. C'mon!_

His breathing increased. Slowly, much too slowly, he gained on the Arabs.

An A-6 Texan droned over the ocean five hundred yards away. Four hundred. Three hundred. Its rear gunner opened up. The tracers didn't come close to _Airwolf._ Hawke waited until he was two hundred yards away when he opened fire. Smoke belched from the Texan's rear. It plunged into the ocean. A wall of blue and white exploded around it.

The Port of Los Angeles came into full view. Rows of multi-colored crates stretched out in all directions, interspersed by warehouses and administrative buildings. Cranes lined the docks, many of which were occupied by cargo vessels of all sizes, along with a couple gleaming white, multi-story cruiseships.

A Stuka went into a near-vertical dive. Seconds later a dark object fell from its belly. A string of curses went through Hawke's mind as he helplessly watched the bomb continue its decent.

A gusher of flames erupted from one of the big steel corrugated buildings.

"Dammit!" Hawke scowled, pushing the engine to full military power. To hell with worrying about fuel. He wanted to kill all these bastards.

A Texan dropped its torpedo into the water. A white wake raced just under the surface toward one of the massive cargo ships. Hawke shook with rage as a volcanic blast of water erupted next to the vessel. An instant later smoke and flames rose from the deck.

Less than a minute later _Airwolf_ entered the fray.

A Stuka just started its dive when Hawke raked it with 30mm fire. The plane split in two. He then turned on two other Stukas. Both planes took evasive action, their rear gunners firing, and missing.

Hawke loosed a 30mm burst. A miss! He fired again. Fire and smoked poured from the trailing Stuka's right wing. It corkscrewed into the ground, exploding next to a row of cargo containers.

Hawke's next burst went into the second Stuka's cockpit. It exploded into a hundred shards of glass. The plane went into a dive and smashed into the water.

_Airwolf _swung around. A Stuka put its bomb into a row of containers. Two Texans lined up for a torpedo run on one of the cruiseships. Hawke dove on them. He sent 30mm rounds into the engine of the lead plane. It shuddered and crashed into the water. He sent another burst into the other Texan's wing, but not before it released its torpedo. Hawke growled as the plane spiraled into the water and shattered. Not long after that, a large column of water went up along the side of the cruiseship.

Another Texan, the last one Hawke could see, dropped to less than thirty feet above the water. Its nose was pointed at another huge cargo ship.

Hawke swung around, making a head on approach with the Texan. Thankfully, it didn't carry any forward-facing machine guns.

A line of tracers from the chain guns ripped through the Texan's engine. A cloud of black smoke burst from it as it dropped into the water.

Hawke drew back the stick and climbed, going for the remaining Stukas. One had dropped its bomb into one of the admin buildings. Anger boiled inside him. How many people were in that building?

Two Stukas remained, and both went into dives. One targeted a dry dock, the other a row of containers.

He could only get one.

The Stuka going for the containers was closest. He banked toward it, led the dive bomber and fired.

Miss.

He fired again.

Miss.

Hawke fought off the panic swelling inside him. He couldn't afford it. That bomb was going to drop any second.

He triggered another burst. The tracers tore through the Stuka's fuselage.

A bright flash blinded him. Sledgehammer blows rocked _Airwolf. _Nasally buzzes filled the cockpit.

Hawke gripped the cyclic stick and blinked. The world around him gradually came into focus.

"String!" Santini shouted. "You okay?"

He blinked a few more times before answering, "Yeah, I'm fine. What about you guys?"

"I'm okay," Santini answered.

"So am I," said Ross. "You must've hit that Stuka's bomb."

"Yeah, lucky me. Dom, what's the damage?"

"We've got a drop in engine power, radar mast is knocked out. Heh! Like that's a big deal, since it wasn't working in this interference anyway." Santini paused. "Aw, this ain't good."

"What?"

"The chain guns are off-line. Some'a that shrapnel musta taken out the firing mechanisms."

"Well isn't that dandy," Hawke growled. "What are we supposed to do without guns?"

Santini just sighed. "We still have the Sunbursts. Fat lot of good they'll do. Can't shoot down planes with flares, can we?"

"We may not have to worry, gentlemen. Look."

Hawke followed the direction Ross' finger was pointed. Hope punched through his anger.

The surviving Stukas and Texans were headed off toward the open ocean. Without any bombs or torpedoes, they couldn't do much more damage to the port.

More importantly, he didn't see any more bombers coming toward the port.

_Maybe the Zeros dealt with the rest of them._

The tension that had been gripping his body melted off him. Hawke sagged in his chair. He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

_We did it. We actually did it._

He looked around the Port of Los Angeles. He couldn't help but frown when he saw the smoke and flames coming from the ships and buildings the Arabs had hit. Still, they'd only managed to connect with a half-a-dozen bombs or torpedoes. The damage to the Port of Los Angeles could have been much worse.

"So what now?" asked Santini.

"Well, we don't have a lot of fuel left. I'm sure this place has a heliport somewhere. As soon as we find it we'll -"

"Below, to the left!" Ross shouted.

Hawke snapped his head left. He felt the blood drain from his cheeks.

The water bubbled violently. Three metallic, cigar-shaped objects broke through the waves.

"Oh crap," Santini said in a hushed voice. "You gotta be kiddin' me."

Hawke didn't respond to his friend. He just stared at the objects, remembering the briefing on _Yonaga _about the Arab fleet.

_One carrier, one cruiser, four destroyers. "They might have a couple old Gato-class submarines tagging along, though that hasn't been confirmed."_

Well Hawke could confirm it. The Arabs didn't have a couple Gato-class subs. They had three of them sitting at the main entrance to the Port of Los Angeles.

_**TO BE CONTINUED**_


	5. Chapter 5

Hawke clenched his teeth as he circled above the Port of Los Angeles. His narrowed eyes locked on the three Arab submarines sitting at the main entrance to the port.

"Dom," he spoke deliberately. "Can you call up the specs on the Gato-class sub?"

Santini only managed to tap a couple keys of his computer console when Ross spoke. "Built by the US between 1940 and 1944. Diesel-electric engines. Speed, twenty-one knots surfaced and nine knots submerged. Complement, about sixty personnel. Armament, ten twenty-one inch torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft, with a load of twenty-four fish. One three-inch deck gun, one twenty-millimeter cannon and one forty-millimeter cannon."

Hawke nodded, impressed by Ross' knowledge. He then looked back down at the subs, his stomach twisting into a painful knot. All those torpedoes and guns could wreck havoc on the port.

His anger boiled when he saw hatches open and men swarm the deck. How long would it take them to have the deck guns ready for firing?

Then something else caught his attention. He leaned forward in his seat, his sharp eyes picking out a dark oval shape on the deck of one of the Gatos.

A Zodiac inflatable raft.

Hawke's chest tightened in dread as he watched several men gather around the raft. Two of them had something strapped to their backs, a rod with a conical top. He recognized it instantly. A Soviet-made RPG-7 rocket launcher. Other men around them carried either light machine guns or AK-47s, the favorite assault rifle of bad guys the world over.

"It looks like they're launching a commando raid." Ross glared through _Airwolf's _windows at the subs below. "We have to stop them."

"How?" Hawke snapped. "Our chain guns are knocked out."

"Well we have to find another way."

"There is no other way. Didn't you hear what I said? We have no weapons."

"So you're just going to let those commandos come ashore? Slaughter everyone they come across? Maybe plant explosives in key areas of the port? This whole place could be out of operation for months."

"I know, dammit!" Hawke whipped his head around to face Ross. "What do you want me to do? Crash into one of those subs?"

A stony expression formed on Ross' face. "If it becomes necessary."

Hawke's eyes widened. Shock slammed into him with the force of a runaway Mack truck. This guy was serious. Absolutely serious.

"You're crazy, Lieutenant. That kamikaze stuff might work for you and your friends on _Yonaga, _but here, that's not an option."

"Well we're not going to just fly around and do nothing."

Hawke looked back down at the subs. Already a few Zodiacs were bobbing in the water, commandos climbing into them.

He glanced back at Ross. The young lieutenant targeted him with a harsh gaze. Hawke wondered if Ross might try to kill him and Santini and crash _Airwolf _into one of those submarines.

_Even if he did that, that'd still leave two submarines and a bunch of commandos to attack the port._

Rage burst inside Hawke. He slammed a gloved fist on his console. Ross was right about one thing. They couldn't just stay up here and allow the Gatos and the commandos to devastate the Port of Los Angeles. But how the hell could they stop them? The chain guns were damaged, they'd unloaded all their missiles back at the FIRM air strip.

_What a stupid thing to do. _Even if their guidance systems couldn't work, he still could have lined up for a straight-on shot at the subs.

_Damn hindsight._

He crushed the cyclic stick, watching the commandos pile into the Zodiacs.

Tracers streaked past _Airwolf_ as the Gatos opened up with the 20mm and 40mm guns. Hawke banked away to get out of the range of the anti-aircraft fire. He wanted to cry out in fury. He was being shot at, commandos were poised to strike the Port of Los Angeles, and he had no way to fight back.

His anger propelled his mind back to the conference room on _Yonaga_, and Admiral Fujita's words to him about fighting without most of _Airwolf's _hi-tech systems.

"_No matter if all our guns are empty, we will keep fighting. We will do whatever it takes to defeat our enemies, no matter how desperate it may seem. Can I expect that sort of commitment from you, Mister Hawke?"_

His instinct was to say, "Yes." The word, however, felt empty given their situation. By his estimate, they had ten minutes of fuel left, fifteen at most. The only weapons system they had that worked was the Sunburst flares.

Hawke held his breath. A plan took shape. A desperate plan, beyond desperate.

_Desperate? Try stupid. Try suicidal._

But it was their only shot at stopping the Arabs.

"Dom, listen up. I'm gonna fly back over those subs. When I give the word, I want you to execute a fuel dump."

"A fuel dump? String, are you nuts? We barely have any fuel left."

"I know. But we don't have a choice. As soon as you've dumped the fuel, I'm gonna launch a couple Sunbursts, then find a place to land." _Or more likely crash land._

Santini sighed heavily. "You do know this is probably the craziest stunt you've ever pulled."

"If you have a better idea, I'm all ears."

"I wish I did," Santini grumbled. "Okay, let's get this over with."

Hawke looked over at Ross. A hint of a smile crossed the young lieutenant's lips.

Taking a quick breath, Hawke shoved the cyclic stick to the right. _Airwolf_ went into a tight turn and headed back toward the Gatos. He lowered the nose. The damaged engine shuddered as he milked every bit of speed he could out of it. His gaze locked on the submarines, lined up in a perfect row.

Streaks of yellow ripped through the sky. Tracers. Lots of them.

_Clang! Clang!_

_Airwolf _shook. Hawke groaned and clenched the stick tightly. Those had to be 20mm shells. Had they been 40mm, he doubted the chopper would still be in one piece.

Another hammer blow rocked _Airwolf_. Another. A puff of orange and black belched from the first Gato's 3-inch gun. Hawke tensed. There'd be no way they could survive a hit from that.

A fountain of water went up twenty feet off their starboard side. _Airwolf _drew closer to the subs. Closer. Almost . . .

"Dom! Now!"

"Dumping fuel!"

_Airwolf_ jumped higher in the air from the sudden loss of weight. Hawke checked to his left. A thick spray of fuel rained over the subs and the commandos boarding the rafts. The anti-aircraft fire halted almost instantly. The Arabs must have realized what it was that covered them.

"Halt fuel dump!" Hawke ordered.

"Fuel dump stopped."

Hawke banked to the left, no longer worried about AA fire from the submarines. The Arabs couldn't risk firing their guns. They knew just one spark would put them in the middle of an inferno.

_Exactly._

"Sunbursts away!"

Hawke thumbed the countermeasures button. Three flares shot out from the rear launcher and fell toward the water.

_Any moment now . . ._

Flames sprouted over the water, sweeping out in all directions. It washed over the submarines like a tidal wave of fire. A few men dove into the fiery water. Others spun around and flailed, their bodies resembling human matchsticks.

Sparks shot up from one of the Zodiacs, then another and another. That had to be rockets and ammo cooking off.

A gusher of flame rose from the middle submarine, severing the bow. Hawke assumed the fire had set off the rounds for the 3-inch gun.

More explosions rocked the submarines as shells continued to detonate. The conning tower of one of the Gatos ripped in half. A huge fireball tore apart the front half of another Gato.

"See, Mister Hawke. You were wrong."

He turned to Ross as the young lieutenant continued. "You still had weapons left on this helicopter."

Hawke responded with a snorting laugh.

A steady beeping filled the cabin. He checked his console. No surprise, the LOW FUEL indicator flashed.

He turned away from the burning submarines and headed toward the port. The engine sputtered a couple times, causing Hawke to tense.

_C'mon, baby. Just a little bit more._

He aimed for the first clear spot he saw, a parking lot next to a three-story rectangular concrete building. The landing gear went down – _Thank God that works. Airwolf _hovered lower, lower . . .

The engine sputtered, groaned, then died. _Airwolf _dropped the remaining fifteen feet, landing with a jolt. Once all was still, Hawke let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He also heard Santini give an audible sigh of relief. Ross just sat in his jump seat, a stoic look on his face.

"Well, not the most graceful of landings," Hawke said. "But we're alive, that's what counts."

"And Kadafi's butchers are dead," Ross added. "That counts even more."

Hawke stared at Ross for a few silent seconds before nodding. He then opened the side door and stepped out onto the blacktop.

Two blue uniformed port security guards rounded the corner of the building, both leveling shotguns at Hawke.

"Hands up! Get your hands up!"

He complied without argument.

"Who the hell are you?"

"To be honest, we're the guys who just saved your butts from a major terrorist attack."

**XXXXX**

Hafiz Ufaral, the Pakistani-born captain of the carrier _Al Bayda, _praised Allah when the radio finally started working. It didn't work a hundred percent. At best it worked forty, maybe forty-five percent. Still better than not having it work at all, which had been the case since they sailed through that strange lightning storm.

Now, however, he wished the damned thing didn't work.

All he had received were broken bits of bad news. A pilot from the attack squadron reported most of _al Bayda's_ planes had fallen victim to the Zeros of the sons of whores from _Yonaga._

Yonaga._ Always _Yonaga, _damn them to hell._

He also picked up a few garbled transmissions from the second wave of the attack, the three Gatos with their suicide commandos. An officer on one of the subs reported their attack was about to commence when Ufaral heard a burst of static, a thump, another burst of static, then screams, then nothing.

He had to assume the attack on the Port of Los Angeles failed.

Ufaral concentrated to keep from shaking. He knew Colonel Kadafi would not tolerate a failure like this. Even moreso since the _Yonaga_ had once again been responsible. Once the _al Bayda_ battle group docked in Tripoli, he knew his life expectancy could be measured in minutes. Actually, when the radio began working properly again, The Colonel would probably order him taken to the brig and shot.

_Yonaga._ The very word stoked the burning coals of his rage. But with that word also came the chance to redeem himself. The attack on the Port of Los Angeles may have failed, but surely Colonel Kadafi would forgive him if he could hunt down the _Yonaga _and send it to the bottom of the sea forever.

_And how can I do that with my air wing gone?_

They would just have to do it the old-fashioned way. Fight it out at close range with guns.

_But if _Yonaga _has most of its aircraft, it could be suicide._

What did that matter? He was a dead man anyway.

"Lieutenant Nava. You have the bridge."

The former Argentine naval officer nodded. Ufaral noted the short, mustached man as he headed for the hatch. As with most non-Arabs serving with Kadafi's forces, Nava was not a believer. Money motivated him and his ilk more than anything else. But what Nava lacked in faith he made up for in competence, honed by six years of service in the Argentine Navy, including combat during The Falklands War a few years back.

Ufaral opened the hatch and turned left, heading for the Combat Information Center. From there he could try to guess _Yonaga's_ position and intercept them. With their radios working somewhat he could use some of the Me-109s flying CAP for the battle group for reconnaissance to try an locate –

"Multiple planes!" Someone on the bridge shouted before Ufaral could close the hatch. "Multiple planes approaching from the south."

Ufaral jumped back inside the bridge. Nava and two other crewmen gathered around the starboard bridge window, binoculars pressed against their eyes. Ufaral raised his own set to his eyes and scanned the sky.

Dozens of specks lined the horizon, headed straight for _al Bayda _and its escorts.

_Dammit! Dammit! _It had to be _Yonaga's _planes, damn their luck.

Ufaral ordered all anti-aircraft units to fire as soon as the enemy planes were in range. He'd just finished speaking when the six Me-109s flying CAP darted over _al Bayda _and made for the Japanese. His heart pounded furiously as he watched through the binoculars.

The Me-109s dove on the incoming planes. Ufaral smiled as he watched three Japanese aircraft plunge into the ocean in flames. His elation quickly turned to dread as several enemy planes broke off to engage the Me-109s. One of his fighters spiraled toward the water, belching smoke and flame. Another Me-109 went down trailing smoke. Another. Another.

The Japanese planes continued their approach. Ufaral could clearly distinguish between the Val dive bombers and the Kate torpedo planes.

Hundreds upon hundreds of yellow tracers streaked across the sky. Ugly black puffs of smoke from larger AA guns blossomed overhead. A Val exploded. Another Val burst into flames and fell. Two Kates trailed smoke and slammed into the water, disintegrating. The murderous fire continued. Two more Japanese planes met fiery ends.

Ufaral's breathing increased. They could do it. They could shoot down all of _Yonaga's_ planes, then find the carrier itself and –

"Torpedoes in the water!" a young seaman to his left called out. "Two torpedoes, thirty degrees to starboard!"

Ufaral spotted the white wakes of the torpedoes barreling toward the carrier.

"Hard right rudder!" he shouted. "Hard right rudder!"

"Hard right rudder!" the helmsman responded, twisting the large wheel.

Ufaral pressed a hand on the console to keep his balance as the 45,000 ton modified Kiev-class carrier heaved to the right. Fear bubbled inside him as he willed the ship to turn faster, willed the torpedoes to miss.

The wakes drew closer.

_Miss. Please miss. Please miss._

The two wakes sped past the _al Bayda._

Ufaral's muscles unraveled. He let out a long sigh of relief, watching the brilliant display of anti-aircraft fire cont-

A deafening roar consumed the bridge. The world shook. Ufaral grunted as he was thrown to the floor, along with everyone else on the bridge. His ears rang. Still he could make out a painful howl. He glanced to his left. A young seaman lay on the floor, clutching an arm Ufaral assumed to be broken.

"What happened?" he asked no one in particular as he climbed to his feet.

No one answered the captain. He didn't need anyone to answer his question. Staring out the bridge window, he saw a huge hole in the _al Bayda's_ deck gushing smoke and fire like a miniature volcano.

A second bomb struck _al Bayda _aft. Again Ufaral and the bridge crew tumbled to the floor.

"Damage report!" he hollered. "Someone get me a damage report!"

Thick clouds of smoke drifted over the deck. Ufaral stared beyond it, taking note of the positions of his escorts. What he saw sent panic surging through him.

The Kanin-class destroyer was burning and listing. One of the Gearing-class destroyers sat dead in the water, fires blazing from one end of it to the other. A huge geyser of water shot up next to the Sverdlov-class cruiser _Darj_.

Ufaral clenched his fists until they shook. This couldn't be happening. _Yonaga _could not defeat him. He had to destroy that accursed ship, watch it sink below the waves, machine gun any damn Japanese or American that made it out alive.

He snatched a sound powered phone and inhaled deeply, ready to scream for his anti-aircraft crews to shoot down every last enemy plane if they valued their lives.

Just before Captain Ufaral uttered his first word, a 550-pound bomb dropped by an Aichi D3A Val struck the _al Bayda's_ superstructure. The resulting fireball vaporized the bridge and everyone on it.

**XXXXX**

"Well you're a sight for sore eyes," Hawke said as Archangel walked into the holding area of the Port of Los Angeles security office, where he, Santini and Ross had been sitting for the past three hours. "Please tell us you brought a 'get out of jail free' card with you?"

Archangel smiled and held up a white, very official-looking, piece of paper. He then turned to the guard walking alongside him. "Officer, if you'd be so kind."

The man simply nodded and unlocked the cell door.

"You must be Lieutenant Ross." Archangel extended his hand.

"Yes, Sir." Ross shook it. "And who are you?"

"You can call me Archangel. I'm String and Dominic's . . . friend at The FIRM."

"So do we have a damage assessment on the port?" Hawke asked.

"A couple buildings suffered serious damage. About twenty or so cargo containers were damaged or destroyed. The ships that were hit can all be repaired. The casualty figures are twenty-five dead and forty-one injured. The port officials said they'll probably have to close the place for a week or so in order to move the sunken subs blocking the entrance. All in all, the attack could have been a lot worse. You three did a great job here today."

The _Airwolf _crew nodded and said, "Thanks."

"What about the _al Bayda_ battle group?" asked Ross. "It's still out there."

"Actually, Lieutenant, that matter's about to be taken care of." Archangel grinned as they headed outside. "Radio communications have improved a lot over the past few hours. The FIRM has been able to contact Admiral Fujita aboard the _Yonaga. _He reports her planes found the Arab fleet and attacked it. The _al Bayda_, along with a Sverdlov-class cruiser and two destroyers were sunk. Two other destroyers were hit but still afloat. The Navy is sending in a Los Angeles-class attack sub, the _Baton Rouge_, to finish them off."

"So that's it," Santini beamed. "It's over. This whole crazy thing is over."

"Unfortunately, Mister Santini, you're wrong."

Santini shot Ross a quizzical look. "What are you talking about? We stopped that Arab battle fleet from taking out the Port of Los Angeles."

"True, but there's still one big problem. We're still here. _Yonaga_, her crew, her escorts. We're still stuck on this parallel Earth."

Santini swallowed. "Oh. Yeah right. Sorry."

Ross scowled. "We're desperately needed on our Earth. Without _Yonaga_, Colonel Kadafi and his forces will rampage across the entire world. How the hell are we supposed to get back to our Earth and stop him?"

"Believe it or not, Lieutenant, I may just have the answer to that question right here."

Archangel pulled out a folder from beneath his white jacket. Hawke, Santini and Ross leaned in for a closer look.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me." Santini shook his head.

Hawke said nothing, just continued to stare at the words imprinted on the folder.

**SP1943-591-FG**

**CODENAME: PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT**

* * *

_**NEXT: THE CONCLUSION**_


	6. Chapter 6

Hawke shook his head as he watched the portly man with a puffy, snow white beard unwind a coil from an object that resembled a pair of artillery shells joined back-to-back with open panels exposing wires, tubes and other electronic components. When Archangel showed him the file on The Philadelphia Experiment, he hadn't been too surprised. After all, such a test had been conducted on the _Yonaga's _Earth. So why shouldn't a similar test have taken place on this Earth? What did surprise him was that The FIRM had known about it, even kept tabs on one of the key scientists on the original project. Dr. Frederick Groncowicz, the old man who stood before him.

"So you've actually been working on this thing for the past forty years?"

"That's right." Groncowicz handed the coil to a FIRM technician wearing white overalls. He then looked to Hawke, his face sporting a sour expression. "Off and on. When The FIRM had a renewed interest in the project and gave me funding for it."

"I find it hard to believe that after forty years you haven't gotten this thing to work," said Lieutenant Ross, who stood next to Hawke.

"It does work," the old scientist snapped. "This device has opened portals to parallel Earths on numerous occasions."

"Then what's the problem?"

Groncowicz scowled at the young Navy officer. "The problem is keeping the portal stable. And that's a problem I could fix if the damn FIRM didn't pull my funding whenever something goes wrong." His voice grew louder as he said this. He also peered over his shoulder at the FIRM technicians, as if wanting to make sure they heard him. Two of them gazed at the old man before rolling their eyes and returning to work.

Hawke sensed tension grip Ross' muscular form. The Navy officer's right cheek twitched. "So what you're saying is, the only hope my shipmates and I have of returning to our world is a machine that may not work?"

"It will work, Lieutenant." Groncowicz's face twisted in anger. "The last full-scale test I did with this equipment, I maintained the integrity of the portal for nearly fifteen minutes."

"And how long ago was that?"

"About ten years ago."

"And what happened after those fifteen minutes?"

"The portal collapsed, and . . . and it knocked out New York City."

Hawke's eyes widened. Ten years ago? New York City? "Wait a minute. You caused the 1977 Blackout?"

Groncowicz's scowl deepened, to the point he bared his teeth. "It's not like I intended for that to happen." He turned his back and checked over his machinery.

The corners of Hawke's mouth twisted. He remembered the news reports of that blackout. The widespread looting and arson, whole blocks of the city destroyed, hundreds injured, thousands arrested.

All caused by the man tasked with getting _Yonaga _back to its own Earth.

Hawke turned to Ross. Despite the younger man's stony façade, he could sense an underlying nervousness.

_But what choice do we have? This is their only shot at getting home._

_Some choice._

"Doctor Groncowicz," one of the technicians said. "All hook-ups to the engines are complete."

Groncowicz nodded. "The remote unit is set up. All systems are green. We're ready to proceed."

"And you're sure this will work?" Ross asked.

Groncowicz sighed loudly. "It will work. I've matched the energy signature of the portal your ship went through. I've run the calculations a dozen times. This machine will open a portal to your home Earth."

"For only fifteen minutes, if we're lucky."

"Fifteen minutes is sufficient for _Yonaga _and her escorts to transit the portal."

"I hope so."

Groncowicz glowered at Ross.

Hawke's eyes flickered between the two. His jaw tightened. They couldn't afford to worry any longer. It was time to turn this gizmo on and hope for the best.

"C'mon, everyone. Let's get out of here."

Hawke led the little group up the steel steps and onto the deck of the _USS Bainbridge._ He couldn't help but wonder what sort of pull Archangel used to get the Navy to give up one of their nuclear-powered cruisers. Then again, _Bainbridge _was one of the older surface nuke ships in the fleet. There were other cruisers a lot more modern than her.

Considering the threat Colonel Kadafi posed on _Yonaga's_ Earth, sacrificing the _Bainbridge _was a small price to pay to help stop that madman.

The group headed to the aft helipad. Hawke, Ross and Groncowicz boarded _Airwolf, _while The FIRM technicians got on a Navy SH-3 Sea King. _Airwolf _lifted off first, followed by the Sea King. While the chopper carrying the technicians flew north to rendezvous with a FIRM support ship, Hawke pointed _Airwolf's_ nose to the east.

Straight ahead of him was the massive form of _Yonaga_, surrounded by her escorting destroyers. Concern swelled within him. He glanced at the irritable scientist in the right jump seat, and prayed his damn machine worked as advertised.

A couple minutes later, _Airwolf _touched down on the carrier's deck. There to greet them were Commander Yoshi Matsuhara, Admiral Allen, Santini, Colonel Bernstein and Admiral Fujita. Hawke couldn't help but be surprised by his presence. The old admiral looked so frail he didn't think him able to stand.

Hawke exited _Airwolf, _followed by Ross and Groncowicz.

"All is ready?" asked Fujita, who gripped a leather-bound book in his small hands.

"Yes," Groncowicz stated. "The portal device is hooked up to _Bainbridge's _nuclear reactor. When I activate the remote control on _Airwolf_, the portal to your Earth will open."

"You're sure about that?" Allen asked.

"Yes I'm sure," Groncowicz snapped. "I've been working on this project since the beginning. Contrary to what some people believe, I do know what I'm doing."

"For our sakes, and for the sake of our Earth, I hope that is true." Matsuhara gave the scientist a hard stare.

Groncowicz just glared back at _Yonaga's_ air group commander.

"Then it appears this is farewell." Fujita took two small steps toward Hawke. "Mister Hawke, again I will tell you that I am thoroughly impressed by your combat skills, as well as your . . . creativity. Your method for destroying those Arab submarines was ingenious."

Hawke's eyes widened. Fujita didn't strike him as the type to give out compliments frivolously. "Thank you, Admiral." He found himself bowing slightly.

Fujita bowed back.

"To be honest," Hawke continued, "when _Airwolf's _gunswere knocked out, and those subs popped up, I remembered what you told me back in the conference room. About how you had to keep fighting no matter what, how you couldn't just quit, even when it looks like you have nothing to fight with. Your words gave me a lot of inspiration."

"That was my intent. I hope that what I am about to give you will provide you with more inspiration for whatever future battles you find yourself in."

Fujita handed him the book he'd been holding. Hawke looked at it, noting the Japanese script on the cover.

"Thank you, Admiral. Um, what is it?"  
"It is your very own copy of the _Hagakure._ You are a fine warrior, Stringfellow Hawke. Read this, and you will become a great warrior."

Hawke opened up the _Hagakure_ and skimmed through it. His brow furrowed as he looked up at Fujita. "It's in Japanese."

"Then you should learn Japanese. Unless you do not desire to be a great warrior."

A slight smile crept across Hawke's lips. _Looks like I'm gonna have a new project when I get home._

Fujita took a step back. "Stringfellow Hawke. Dominic Santini. We thank you for the service you rendered to _Yonaga _in our latest battle against the forces of the madman Kadafi."

The old admiral raised his hand for a salute. Ross, Matsuhara, Allen and Bernstein did the same.

Hawke glanced at Santini, then back to _Yonaga's _senior staff. The two returned their salutes.

"Thank you for helping defend our country," Hawke said. "We couldn't have succeeded without you."

"Good luck on your Earth," Santini added. "And be sure to give that nutjob Kadafi a swift kick in the ass for us."

"We will." Ross smiled. "You can count on it."

After a final round of good-byes, Hawke, Santini and Groncowicz boarded _Airwolf_ and took off. The chopper hovered a mile away from the carrier and her escorts, the nose pointed directly at the stationary form of the _USS Bainbridge._

"You ready, Doc?" Hawke turned to the scientist.

Groncowicz responded by holding up the brick-shaped remote control with its long, thick antenna. He flipped a switch. A light at the top glowed green.

"We have a good signal. Activating portal device in three, two, one."

Groncowicz's thumb pushed down on a big red button.

Hawke gazed out the windscreen, his chest tightening with anticipation. The _Bainbridge_ bobbed in the waves. He gripped the stick tighter, waiting for something. Lights, sparks, flashes, something out of movies like _Back To The Future _or _The Terminator._

But nothing like that came from _Bainbridge._

"You sure that thing's working?" Hawke whipped his head toward Groncowicz.

"Yes it's working. Just wait a minute."

Hawke scowled under his helmet. What little faith he had in this mad scientist evaporated. Couldn't Archangel have gotten someone else who'd worked on The Philadelphia Experiment? Someone more competent? Someone who didn't cause a disastrous blackout in New York ten years ago?

"Whoa!" Santini blurted. "What's that?"

Hawke peered out the windscreen. He held his breath when he noticed a glowing green fog surrounding the _Bainbridge._ Bolts of lightning shot out of the fog.

Suddenly a white glow enveloped the cruiser. It expanded just as Hawke turned away. He blinked a few times and looked back.

A dark portal formed over the ocean. Blue flashes lit up the inky blackness.

"It worked," he muttered.

"Don't sound so surprised," Groncowicz grumbled. "I said it would work."

Hawke watched as _Yonaga _cleaved through the water at flank speed, followed by its five destroyers. His eyes flickered between the World War II relics and the portal.

_Stay open. Stay open._ His heartbeat increased, fueled by anxiety. Visions of the portal collapsing, and _Yonaga _stranded on this Earth, flooded his mind.

Relief swelled within him as _Yonaga _was swallowed up by the darkness. Then, one by one, the destroyers disappeared in the portal.

Both he and Santini let out simultaneous sighs of relief.

Five minutes later, the portal flickered, then collapsed. The green fog around _Bainbridge _glowed brighter than a neon sign. Brighter . . . Brighter.

A brilliant fireball vaporized the cruiser.

"Dammit!" Groncowicz raged.

"Calm down, Doc," said Santini. "You knew that machine was gonna blow."

Groncowicz snapped his head toward Santini. "Do you know how many years of work I put into that machine? Now I have to start all over again. That is, if The FIRM gives me money to do it. And who knows if those fickle bastards will do it."

"Ah, quit bein' so selfish. You helped get all those folks back to their own Earth."

Groncowicz ignored Santini's words and continued to rant about losing his portal device.

Hawke tuned him out, instead looking down at his copy of the _Hagakure_ given to him by Admiral Fujita. He stared out the windscreen, past the blossoming fireball that had been the _Bainbridge_, and to the area where the portal had been just minutes before.

"Good luck, guys."

**XXXXX**

Brent Ross' stomach twisted in knots as he stood in _Yonaga's _crowded Combat Information Center. Twelve hours. Twelve hours had passed since they'd gone through the portal, and they hadn't heard so much as a peep from anyone or anything. US Pacific Command in Hawaii, Anderson Air Force Base on Guam, Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Headquarters. Lieutenant Okazu, _Yonaga's _communications officer, couldn't raise any of them. He couldn't even pick up any civilian radio stations. Colonel Bernstein theorized the recently opened portal was causing the same sort of communications problems they experienced on that other Earth. Fujita ordered _Yonaga _and its escorts to steam due west for Japan. Hopefully they would be out of this interference zone soon.

Hopefully, they were back on their Earth.

All eyes remained on Okazu as he continued to twist dials and speak into his microphone. The only reply he got was static. Ross tensed, waiting to hear a voice telling them all they were home.

He waited five minutes. Ten minutes. A half-hour. An hour. Ross started praying harder than he could ever remember. They had to be back home. They couldn't have wound up on another Earth. What chance would their Earth have without _Yonaga _to oppose Colonel Kad-

"_Yo . . . Yonaga. _Is that you?" A voice in Japanese said over the speaker.

Okazu audibly gasped before he replied. "_H-Hei._ This is _Yonaga. _Is this Maritime Self-Defense Headquarters?"

"_Hei. _Now give us your authentication code."

"Five-Five-Two-Seven-Omega-Nine-Omega-Five."

A pause. "Authentication code confirmed. It is good to hear from you _Yonaga_. We feared you had been lost."

_We were, in a way, _Ross mused.

Admiral Fujita took the microphone from Okazu. "Headquarters, this is Admiral Fujita. Is the Chinese laser satellite still active?"

"Um, yes. Yes, Sir, it is."

"And Kadafi's murderers still run wild throughout the world?"

"Um, yes, Sir. They do."

The Admiral's slight shoulders sagged visibly. "Then we are, at long last, home."

Shouts erupted through the CIC. _"Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!"_

Ross couldn't keep the smile off his face. He turned and grasped Yoshi Matsuhara's hand, pumping it furiously.

"He did it. That crazy old man did it."

"I wish I could say I didn't have any doubts," Matsuhara said. "But now whatever doubts I did have have been put to rest."

"Put me in touch with Captain Jojima." Fujita referred to the _Yonaga's_ liaison with the JMSDF.

"_Hei! _At once, Admiral."

A couple minutes later a new voice came over the speaker. "Admiral Fujita. This is Captain Jojima. It is good to finally hear from you. Are you well?"

"_Hei. Yonaga _and her escorts are all operating at one hundred percent."

"That is good to hear. What of the _al Bayda_ battle group?"

"Destroyed, and the Port of Los Angeles saved."

More _Banzais_ echoed through CIC.

"Good job, Admiral. Are you en route back to Japan?"

_"Hei."_

"Good. I am afraid your services are needed immediately. Kadafi's forces have seized the Batan Islands north of The Philippines. Intelligence believes they will use it as a base to launch long-range bombers against the Home Islands. _Yonaga _must neutralize this threat."

Ross sighed. They'd just been to another Earth, fought an Arab carrier battle group, and had to rely on a risky science experiment to return them to their Earth. The whole crew deserved at least a month's shore leave after something like that.

Instead, they had to rush off and deal with another threat from Kadafi.

Then again, such was the life of a warrior.

_**THE END**_

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **_Thanks for reading this, and for reviewing. I always desire feedback to my stories. Reviews are very helpful and appreciated. The _Yonaga_, and the members of its crew, are not my creations. They belong to the late author Peter Albano from his series of "The Seventh Carrier" novels that came out during the 1980s and 1990s. This is just my small way of honoring a series I enjoyed a lot. Banzai! _

_Now, if you liked this story, you'll enjoy my new original alien invasion novel "Dark Wings." It's available in paperback from Amazon and as an e-book from smashwords-dot-com._


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